The Grand Domestic Revolution is a multi-faceted long term ‘living research’ project initiated by Casco - Office for Art, Design and Theory that calls for an interrogation of the domestic sphere as to imagine new forms of living and working in common. From 5th March till 19th April Careof will address the notions of interiority, urban space and city dwelling, ecology and sustainability through the lens of the traveling exhibition The Grand Domestic Revolution (GDR) GOES ON.

Inspired by the US late nineteenth-century ‘material feminist’ movements that experimented with communal solutions to isolated domestic life and work, GDR involves artists, designers, domestic workers, architects, gardeners, activists and others to collaboratively experiment with and re-articulate the domestic sphere, challenging traditional and contemporary divisions of private and public.

In the Milan iteration - which follows those in London, Londonderry, Ljubljana, Stockholm and Malmö – GDR GOES ON takes on a different configuration and comes into contact with Careof’s extensive video and book archive, with documentation and works by Italian artists and architects, generating a new entangled view of the urban and the domestic sphere.
The set for the GDR GOES ON exhibition in Milan has been developed by the Italian designer collective AUT with artist Christian Nyampeta. Designed to house the works on display as a series of discursive events during the show, this production develops a new formulation of the concept of “living space”. At the eve of the
Milano EXPO, with all its possible repercussions, the project starts from the analysis of the local context and time, in its interaction with the space of Careof and the city of Milan.

How does GDR GOES ON - Milan at Careof serve as an occasion to reflect on the idea of “home” as a social issue? Is conceiving a collective form of domesticity possible?

Starting from these key questions, the articulation of the exhibition space is developed from some exemplary aesthetic traditions that emerged from radical practices in Milan - and in Italy - around the end of the 60s, and tried to find answers to the need of forging a wider social materiality. The setting of GDR GOES ON: Milan at Careof is conceived starting from an inspiration suggested by cathartic models of self-production released by Enzo Mari in the early 70s, as well as by the experiences of the artist, architect and designer Ugo La Pietra, who defined new interactions and alternative systems of habitability of public space, or again by collective experiences and workshops conducted by Global Tools in the mid 70s.

The core of GDR GOES ON - Milan at Careof consists of the GDR library, which is also the backbone of the project’s ongoing ‘living research.’ It offers points of engagement with the project and consists and is a growing collection of over 200 books and documents considered to be “revolutionary” tools concerning domestic labor, modes of self organizing, artistic and (interior) architectural methods of participation and cooperation, urbanism and sustainability, feminism, alternative economies, feminist utopian science fiction, and philosophical inquiries into community.

The works presented in the exhibition act as “catalyst” of these issues, developing a reflection in the space of the show and implicity referring to the GDR Library, which visitors are encouraged to read and consult, developing their own path through the project. Alongside the work of Dutch and international artists already presented in previous editions of GDR GOES ON - including Katerina Šedá, Matthijs de Bruijne, Helke Sander, Travis Meinolf, Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere - some Italian artists who work on the issue of community and urban space have been invited to contribute to this presentation in Milan: from the historical experiences of Ugo La Pietra, to the most recent works of Adelita Husni Bey and Ludovica Carbotta.

In dialogue with the texts and works presented in the exhibition space by GDR GOES ON, Careof video archive and the recently opened bookshop are part of the project as well. These will contribute, respectively, with a selection of videos by Italian artists (Zimmerfrei, Maja Bajevic, Danilo Correale) and with a number of volumes provided by the vast Careof library, which respond to the themes presented in the show, developing a specific point of view, which reflects upon Italian production in the recent past.

For this occasion, Careof also invited Dutch artists Doris Denekamp and Jimini Hignett for a residency, which will run from mid february onwards, to continue their long term research into the relation between beekeeping and urban space, a study they began at Kunstvereniging Diepenheim, the Netherlands last year which culminated with the publication If Bees are few.… In May, Dutch artist Wietske Maas will also be in residency at Careof to develop a research on the topic of ecological sustainability in the urban space, which she addresses by mapping the presence of wild flora and vegetables in the city area and considering their edible potentiality - in relation with the different cultural traditions cohabiting in the territory of Milan.

During the exhibition a series of discursive events, presentations and a screening will take place at Careof to expand the dialogue between the works, the device of the thematic library and the community - intended as a group in the making, which is reconfigured every time and for each event, following the interests, desires and urgencies arising from the themes on display. First in this series, to coincide with the opening, the presentation of the Grand Domestic Revolution Handbook, which will be followed in the coming weeks by a Read-in event and a screening of th cooperative sitcom Our Autonomous Life, that offers a humorous glimpse into the interpersonal conflicts and political struggles of a fictional squatter living group in The Netherlands. Two lecture performances in the form of convivial tastings will also take place as presentation of the residences of Doris Denekamp and Jimini Hignett and Wietske Maas.

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a project by Careof
in partnership with Casco - Office for Art, Design and Theory, Utrecht

The third edition of the project LIVE WORKS creates a platform dedicated to live contemporary practices that contribute to deepen and broaden the idea of performance, following the current evolution of performance and its styles.
This platform aims to measure the concreteness of performance art in the real world, investigating the double nature of LIVE - in person and alive - and highlighting those moments in which performance integrates with the dynamics of life.

LIVE WORKS is a platform that features LIVE WORKS Performance Act Award, The Free School of Performance (FSP) and Centrale Fies Performance Art Collection. The competition LIVE WORKS Performance Act Award is open to a wide range of emerging performative actions, including: media arts, lecture performances, task performances, text-based performances and multimedia storytelling, relational practices and workshop-based projects, flash mobs, politically engaged and activist project, experience design, fashion design and relational urbanism. The nine projects selected by LIVE WORKS will be invited to participate in a production residency at Centrale Fies from 1st to the 10th July 2015, during which the finalists will be awarded an budget extended to € 800,00 to produce their performance and the opportunity to participate to The Free School of Performance.

The performances produced will be presented during the 35th edition of the Drodesera Festival of Performing Arts. On this occasion, the nine finalists will be evaluated by a jury who will select the winner. The winning artist will be offered a € 1000,00 prize (net) and the possibility of an additional residency at Centrale Fies.